Bayern celebrates the sale of Lewandowski to Barcelona

The Bayern Munich board celebrated the transfer of Robert Lewandowski to Barcelona for 60 million euros as unexpected business is celebrated.

The festive atmosphere in which the president, Herbert Hainer, the general director, Oliver Kahn, the sporting director, Hasan Salihamidzic, and the coach, Julian Nagelsmann, concluded the operation this Friday, corresponded to the expectations exceeded by the sale of a player 34-year-old who they didn't want.

According to sources close to the coaching staff and the management, after being eliminated from the Champions League in the quarterfinals against Villarreal on April 22, the club decided to offer the Pole the letter of freedom if he did not agree to renew the contract that expired in 2023.

The sudden interest shown by Barça in May – the Catalan club was the only one to formalize an offer – led to a large financial injection.

If from Barça it is unofficially indicated that the acquisition will cost 50 million, from Bayern, and on condition of anonymity, they assure that the transfer was closed for a total of 60 million euros: 45 fixed, five if Barça qualifies for the Champions League in the coming seasons, and ten more if the player completes his first year of contract as a culé.

"Barça insisted that it will reach 60 million if Bayern publicly announces beforehand that it is selling for 50," says an agent who participated in the sale.

“This is how they want to alleviate the media impact”

"We know very well what we owe Robert," said Khan, in the statement that made the departure official;

"But great players have left Bayern in the past and not only did our world not fall apart, on the contrary, we were often more successful."

Khan himself chaired the board's meeting with Nagelsmann in February, when the coach presented his first major audit into the state of a team showing signs of exhaustion.

He suggested a regeneration in key positions.

At the head of the casualty list he placed the Pole.

Author of 277 goals in 275 games, Lewandowski enjoys the prestige that confers on him being the highest scoring footballer in the major European leagues since 2016. But the coach argued his obsolescence, explaining that at 34 years old, both his physical display and his ambition had subsided in a general context that turned against him.

Lewandowski, he said, belonged to a species, that of the

of area, that contemporary football condemned to extinction in teams that, like Bayern, tried to monopolize control of the ball.

"We've had ten Bundesligas in a row," Nagelsmann said, according to a club employee;

"But if you want Bayern to be competitive in the Champions League, we need a

that is not only limited to shooting but has an amplifying effect on the collective game in the last third of the field".

92 million gross in four years

Nagelsmann argued that the old

opportunists like Lewandowski – or like Luka Jovic – stood out in the Bundesliga thanks to two factors.

First, a predominant back and forth, of continuous transitions, which led the parties towards disorder;

second, the criteria of the clubs in the selection of central defenders, which put the emphasis on their height for aerial play before their agility and speed for anticipation.

Put on that stage, Lewandowski stood out, but football, and this was appreciated in the high levels of the Champions League, pointed to inexorable changes.

The defenses would coordinate better every day.

If Bayern tried to dominate their rivals in the opposite field and without spaces, against closed defenses with attentive centre-backs, Lewandowski would become a stopper.

Nagelsmann stated that if Bayern produced ten scoring chances,

Lewandowski would finish off seven;

but that if he managed to reformulate the attack without him, the team would manage 20 chances whose shot would be shared by the three attackers and the two midfielders.

Their

ideals in this scheme were Sadio Mané, whom he knew from Salzburg, and Roberto Firmino, with whom he coincided at Hoffenheim.

Stunned by the exposure, Khan and Salihamidzic began scrutinizing Lewandowski in every match.

The conclusion, after the double duel with Villarreal, was blunt: Nagelsmann was right.

In March, Bayern unsuccessfully sought to sign Haaland while offering Lewandowski a one-year renewal.

Determined to leave, the Pole confessed to a friend from the club that his goal was not to earn more money.

His wife, Anna, wanted to live in a southern country and Barça offered him 23 million euros gross for four seasons, below the 28 he earned in Munich.

They say at Bayern that if they didn't sell Lewandowski in June it was because of a mistake in Barça's strategy.

The player's statements at the end of the season, in May, saying that he would not train with Bayern again, were perceived as intolerable blackmail.

Uli Hoeness, the honorary president, thought that the idea that any act of rebellion would pay off against a weak club could not be transferred to the squad.

Hoeness also commented among his directors that he was convinced that Barça would end up paying what they asked for since Laporta was the real interested party, and not Xavi Hernández.

For days, Bayern feigned disinterest and arrogance.

He never responded to Barça's first offer of 45 million plus five for goals, and forced the striker to appear in Sabener Strasse making an act of contrition.

Then it was Bayern itself that unblocked the negotiation when a high official addressed Lewandowski last Monday, to warn him that Barça would sign Raphinha for 70 million.

If they really loved him, he had to put pressure on his agent Pini Zahavi.

Harry Kane, an idea taken from Xavi

Last Wednesday, when Barça made the signing of Raphihna official, Lewandowski told Zahavi to look for another club immediately.

Zahavi spoke with Joan Laporta, the president of Barça, and hours later the frenzy began in the Bayern offices, where they began to receive upward offers.

Kahn and Hoeness weren't surprised.

The Germans always knew that Barça's interest would end up becoming a profitable business for Bayern since Joan Laporta, the president, maintained a relationship with Pini Zahavi that even became corporate.

Nagelsmann assures among his collaborators that Xavi has a "colossal" task before him.

The German coach notes that his Catalan colleague will find serious difficulties in adapting Lewandowski to Barcelona's elaborate game in a concert of defenses as well organized as that of the League.

The signing, in his opinion, is not a wish of Xavi.

About two months ago a mutual friend confessed to him that the priorities of Xavi, one of those responsible for Ibrahimovic's departure from Barça in 2012, did not go through signing a

like Lewandowski but to get Messi back, try to recruit Gabriel Jesús, or even convince Harry Kane to leave Tottenham, if he failed to qualify for the Champions League, as it finally happened.

This information enlightened Nagelsmann.

For weeks, the coach has been trying to convince the Bayern leaders to try to hire Kane, in his opinion, the most associative

that exists.

The most capable in the world to generate dangerous situations, for himself and for his companions.

The opposite of Lewandowski.

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